When using navigation devices, in particular when using navigation systems while traveling in a motor vehicle, the fundamental problem is that the driver must split his attention between the actual conditions in front of the motor vehicle and the display of navigation instructions on the screen of the navigation device.
However, this problem is most serious precisely in cases where the motor vehicle approaches a comparatively complicated set of maneuvers with which the driver is not yet familiar. In such a situation, the driver is confronted with the dilemma of having to discern and understand the display on the navigation screen, while at the same time keeping an eye on the actual traffic situation and line of the road. In addition, the driver must recognize the correlating features between what is displayed on the navigation screen and the actual situation on the road, thereby associating the graphic navigation instructions to the actual situation so as to follow the right way through the upcoming set of maneuvers.
In other words, this means that especially high requirements are to be placed on the graphic display of navigation devices precisely where complex intersections are to be displayed on the screen in an intuitively discernible way.
Known from prior art in this regard from U.S. Pat. No. 5,739,772 is to output complicated navigation maneuvers, e.g., with several consecutive turns one after the other, as a row of schematic arrows on the screen. However, in this known teaching, complicated navigation maneuvers are presented as a sequence of various symbols or arrows, while the entire navigation maneuver is not logically or graphically summarized in a single display.
In particular, however, such complex intersections are only symbolically depicted according to this teaching known from prior art, often making it difficult for the driver to intuitively recognize the correlation between what is displayed on the navigation screen and the actual situation on the road.
Conventional navigation systems known from prior art generally display complex intersections as consecutive, time-resolved individual maneuvers, so that the overview needed by the user cannot be put together on the display of the navigation device. As an alternative, the complex intersections in standard navigation systems are displayed solely within the framework of a conventional 2-D map or symbol representation. However, this frequently overwhelms the user, since the symbol or map representation does not correlate with his visual perspective. This holds all the more true since driving through a complex intersection demands a very high level of concentration on the road situation, so that the user can only focus very little on interpreting an abstract representation on the screen of the navigation device.